Like the water that plunges over the falls, the river of life--the flowing of the grace of God--carries every man to his destiny. The experiencing of life, which occurs either in the manifestation of grace or the frustration of grace, dictates to man his actions and reactions. For man is driven from deep within the essence of his being to seek continually the fullest possible expression of life. Whether he understands it or not, every man is on a journey--the journey to Jesus, who is the absolute expression of life for mankind.
Although the journey of life begins with such hope and glory for everyone, it soon turns, quicker for some than others, to despair and shame. All men eventually struggle with life because there is mystery in finding solutions to the conflicts and challenges of life. Ironically, it seems man’s pursuit of life destroys the life of God already given to him. Sadly, religion kills.
This mystery of the good life for the struggling Christian can be illustrated. I can say, “My faith is in Jesus.” However, do I mean, “MY faith is in Jesus?” Or, do I mean, “My faith is IN Jesus?”
My faith always produces my devotion, my piety, and my worship. More accurately, my faith only produces my attempt to be more zealous, more holy, and of more service to God. Whereas, being in Jesus, He is always faithful to do what He said He would do. The faith I experience being in Jesus is actually the faithfulness of God.
This mystery is the story of my life. After fifty years of religious pursuits, I now see the error of my ways. I can express it only by saying that in some way Jesus broke through to me and arrested me even in my religious pursuits. I am now continually being saved because God is continually conquering me.
As a result of this rescue of my life, I now see Jesus more distinctly as “. . . the way, the truth, and the life.” This redemptive miracle is simply the faithless now experiences faith. His faithfulness, His glory, and His life are being reflected in me. I experience Christ, therefore, I am.
The successful achieving of this journey to the good life is uniquely Christian. It is intricately involved in the experiencing of Jesus Christ. In other words, the emphasis of life is actually upon the learning process rather than what is being learned. This is not to say that what is being learned or being experienced is not important. Rather, it implies that how one learns and how one is experiencing is more important.
Mysteriously, the process of the learning experience itself is the essence of life. When one stops learning he begins to die, even though he may now have a vast resource of things that have been learned. Incredibly, tragically, it has always been the people of God, the people who have once experienced God and learned about Him who eventually experience death to the good life.
To experience the continual good life that does not die, the Christian must not attempt to live in past experiences, as glorious as they may be. Abundant life is not based upon what has happened but rather upon what is now being experienced. Life is not what God has done, but it is what God is doing now. Continual, abundant life can be found only in the current learning of Christ, only in the current experiencing of Christ.
Failure to experience the perpetual, contented life is not a problem of the amount of knowledge obtained but rather a problem of failing to experience continually the learning process itself into greater understanding of Jesus Christ.
Thus, salvation from religion is the journey back from attempting to live in what we already know and have experienced to living in the continual revealing and experiencing of Jesus Christ by the Spirit. It is a journey back to life in Jesus Christ as your breath, your heartbeat, and your essence of life. We must be saved from the attempt to find life in what has been produced by Jesus in the past to experience what He is doing now.
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